Cloud Storage and the end of silos

It should not come as any surprise that people who specialise in one thing are not necessarily experts at other things. For example, and getting straight to the point, a great video editor cannot be expected to have the technical skills to securely store the edited master of his finished programme. The master is a valuable asset that is expected to be kept safe and sound. In days gone by, placing it on the shelf in an adjacent storeroom might have been OK but now that is hardly considered secure enough. Running off a copy and storing that somewhere else is good idea... but wait! Surely the editor is getting away from his prime skill – editing. The truth is that there now are many choices for storage and it is easy to access top-notch storage services via the internet – in the Cloud.

As we know it’s easy enough to see clouds in the sky, especially in the UK, but impossible to touch them. The internet’s Cloud is even more abstract – you cannot even see it. This may be why the idea of committing valuable video assets to such a remote thing as an invisible cloud has caused concern for some people. Their cry goes up, “I want to see my material on the shelf. Otherwise I don’t know where it is.” At this point you wonder if ‘the Cloud’ was really a good choice of name for a very wide area of networked computers. The name came from those network diagrams that used a cloud symbol to represent a computer network. Maybe it should never have been more widely used!

Today, networking allows us instantly to connect with other computers and so access their services. This offers a great opportunity to divide up all the many tasks to appropriate experts for each. And one of those can be the storage expert. Many of us have become our own storage experts, saving files to the hard disc and hoping the data will be there when we next need it. It’s not hard to automatically sync the main disc to an external drive... so you have two copies. But even then fire of theft might put both those out of reach. What makes sense is to use an expert who will store the data somewhere else. In an office the IT department might run this. But if that is in the same building... and so it goes on. At some point you have to decide how secure you want your data to be, how much you want to spend in achiving it, data speeds, volumes, access, etc.

The real storage experts are the data centres. Secure accessible storage is their business (not editing, production...) and they should be able to provide any level of service you wish. However data centres provide services for a very wide range of customers – such as banks. Hopefully they will understand the requirements needed to handle video. If not you might get into a difficult IT-meets-video conversation where each side knows what it can do, but does not really understand the needs and limitations of the other. It’s a bit like being presented with a computer without any applications software. There’s a bit of technology missing to let you work with a data centre.

Fortunately this gap has been bridged by an increasing number of service providers so that you can work with a user-friendly GUI or menu in web browser, and easily save and access your chosen video clips from the data centre – connected over the internet. Some such providers include familiar names such as Sohonet (www.sohonet.com ) that offers Cloud hosting together with very high-speed internet with up to 1 Gbit/s connectivity. Aframe (aframe.com) offers a very easy GUI and a collaborative environment for video production based on its Cloud servers. Watching their ‘Stone age’ video brings up the point of collaboration.

While it’s true that the Cloud does offer a new, very secure way to store footage; that is only the beginning. A collaborative production environment that can be accessed anywhere has the potential to change the way a whole production, TV station or network, media empire... can work. This was made very clear at NAB 2012 by Ramki Sankaranarayanan, CEO and Founder of Prime Focus Technologies. He noted that the technical departments have transferred to file-based workflows while production has not really changed. “Now we can put the content file at the centre of the workflow.” Then, with a suitable management framework, you can concurrently connect all pieces of the company, with everyone working on the same content. So creative teams, programming teams, promo teams, legal teams, marketing, broadcast operations, distribution, enterprise, new media, theatrical, subtitles... can share the same media file.

Clearly this is a completely different workflow to what happens in today’s ‘silo’ culture where each group works in isolation from the others with its own copy of the programme footage. Keeping everyone on track needs a great deal of communications, meetings, copies, administration, etc. Prime Focus has seen the potential of the Cloud and can enable all groups to work from the same shared file. It is very easy to understand the efficiencies this can bring to the workflow, enhancing speed and accuracy as well as providing potential for lowering costs. In this way storage in the Cloud is not just a different, safer place to store media but a first step towards new efficient workflows for production, and beyond.

Facilis at BVE 2012

Real Life Kit at ProVideo2011

Suitcase TV at IBC2011

Sonnet Technology at IBC2011

ATTO Technology at IBC2011

StorageDNA LIVE at BVE 2016

Advancements in NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express), the storage protocol designed for flash, are revolutionising data storage. According to G2M Research, the NVMe market will grow to $60 billion by 2021, with 70 percent of all-flash arrays being based on the protocol by 2020. NVMe, acting like steroids for flash-based storage infrastructures, dynamically and dramatically accelerates data delivery.

A big challenge facing owners of legacy content is rationalising and archiving their tape and film-based media in cost effective and efficient ways, whilst also adding value. Normally the result of this is to find a low cost means of digitising the content – usually leaving them with a bunch of assets on HDD. But then what? How can content owners have their cake and eat it?

The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), is a non-profit trade alliance that fosters the adoption of one set of common, ubiquitous, standards-based protocols for interoperability over IP in the media and entertainment, and professional audio/video industries.

Subscribe to our industry email service

Email Address

Subscribing to this service will add your email address to our main database and you will then receive marketing information from KitPlus and our partners. We will not share or sell your information and you can unsubscribe at any time.

kitplus.com is the new name for tv-bay and home of new and used broadcast equipment sales and hire, new and used film equipment sales and hire, used video equipment and professional video and tv product sales and hire. For sale, wanted or for hire KitPlus / tv-bay has all the broadcast sales information and contacts that you will ever need along with industry jobs should you be looking for a change of direction or have a vacancy to fill. From Sony Broadcast products to used disc drives the site has it all. Simply subscribe to recieve the daily email containing updates and additions to broadcast equipment on the site. If you are looking for broadcast news or news about new pro video or broadcast gear then KitPlus is the right place for you.

To buy and sell or hire your new / used video equipment on KitPlus is easy, fast, and very successful. The used broadcast video equipment market needs a central location to advertise all the video equipment for sale. If you want to buy or hire broadcast ENG equipment from suppliers such as Sony Broadcast, Vinten, PAG, JVC, Panasonic, even Rycote or any other broadcast equipment manufacturer KitPlus is the place to start. Sony broadcast provides probably the widest range of cameras or camcorders, and video equipment to the broadcast industry and for this reason there is always a good supply of sony broadcast used video equipment available around the world. KitPlus has provided the most comprehensive portal to all of the equipment from all of the dealers around the globe. Help and advice is on hand to choose the right VTR, camera, tripod. Although used broadcast video equipment can reduce your investment broadcast equipment is never cheap, with the massive choice of video equipment available on tv-bay you are sure to pay less. The next time you are purchasing or hiring used video equipment start your search at kitplus.com. If you are looking for a Sony broadcast monitor there are over 300 units available. If you are looking for a tripod to support your broadcast camcorder there are over 250 items online. Serial converters, HDV camcorders, DVCAM camcorders, Digi Beta camera’s & VTR’s, DVC Pro equipment, used routers and switchers, waveform monitors and vectorscopes, even complete shooting kit including Sony DSR-PD170P, Vinten Pro 5, sennheiser K6/ME66, boom pole, rycote softie, case, and more....
Used video equipment whether it be broadcast & professional or consumer has never been so easy to find and if you require help then contact tv-bay - your internet broadcast dealer. We have hundreds of reseller, dealer and hire company users with the biggest range of new and refurbished broadcast, film and video equipment from either dealer, reseller or private selle r. You will also find broadcast and media finance specialists such as Adamtean, Medialease, Fineline and Azule Finance.

You can also find your new & used High Definition (HD) converters. Up & Down Conversion, HD-SDI to SD-SDI. Hi Def Cameras and Hi Def VTR’s from Sony Broadcast, JVC Professional, Panasonic Broadcast and Effect Technology to name but a few. If you are in the UK you can find Sony Broadcast equipment that has the Silver Support package included supplied by reputable broadcast dealers and broadcast resellers.